Our views on self-insert characters
Frank and myself, Luthien, have seen the best and worst of character designs and concepts throughout our collective experience as writers and roleplayers, and a topic that I would like to go over was one that often came up. Self-insertism. I'd like to go over points about what we deem as acceptable on the topic, as often self-insertism is seen as bad, or is shamed upon by other writers. It's often treated as a cheap, off-limits and easy way to create a character. However, Frank and myself believe that with the right idea and influence, these characters can thrive. What is self-insertism? Self insert characters are characters of which the author lives through. A character based on and emotionally driven by the writer, who ultimately represents the writer as a person. The author could be writing about themselves in a better, alternate world, or they could be creating an ultimate self. 'The unreasonable issues that many people have with self insert characters:' *The self-confidence required to own and be proud of a character based on yourself, can make other people feel upset, inferior, jealous and generally bitter. Bullies don't like people with confidence. *Often people believe that self-insert characters take little creativity to invent, or that they worked harder to create something different from themselves. *People pride themselves on creating a character very different from themselves as they see it as being more unique, professional and capable in regard to writing. 'The reasonable issues that many people have with self insert characters:' *Often people become defensive of their character, and behave unrealistically to avoid death or injury in situations that they got themselves into in the first place. *People take insults given to the character far more personally, and are offended if character flaws are pointed out during roleplay sessions. *It can give little room for character development when done incorrectly *People like to come across as conventionally cool, and behave over-edgily and give themselves dark, secret pasts or tortured backstories *People exert over-confidence and over-smugness through their characters, and are unrealistically hard to offend or defeat in battle. Things to remember We believe that self-insert characters are a good base for inexperienced ''and ''advanced roleplayers. You don't know anyone better than yourself, and so understanding emotional reactions and responses within your character will become easier and realistic. 'What to avoid' *Avoid making your self insert practically perfect in ever way. Admitting your self flaws is the first step to making a good character based upon yourself. *Avoid unrealistic arrogance. We understand that you might be trying to make yourself look important and impossible to offend, even if you are doing it through a character. Remember that the character you are playing, isn't directly you, it's based ''on you. If you are being bullied in character, remember that the other person probably doesn't think that you will take it personally, and is just having fun roleplaying. Its good to treat roleplay as hypothetical situations. If someone ran up to you in real life and started shouting insults, how would you ''realistically ''respond? Take this reaction and implement it into your character. *Avoid basing large quantities of your characters personality on achievements such as physical strength, scariness factor, or beauty. You can have aspects special to your character, but you need to make sure they are still interesting, even without it. 'What to remember''' *You can have more than one character based upon yourself *You don't know anyone better than you know yourself! *If you get a character that you deem as yourself into a life threatening situation, you need to face the consequences realistically or talk about possible outcomes with your roleplaying friends. Character death cant be forced, but we do expect some regard to realism